Aid worker killings, Sudan atrocities, and 1 year after Derna: The Cheat Sheet

A weekly read to keep you in the loop on humanitarian issues.

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GENEVA

Our editors’ weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.

On our radar

A deadly week for aid workers in Palestine

The UN completed the first round of a polio vaccination campaign on 12 September aiming to inoculate around 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip. The first case of the disease in 25 years was detected in the enclave last month. More than 560,000 children under the age of 10 have received a first vaccine dose in the past two weeks – a “massive success amidst a tragic daily reality”, according to the head of the World Health Organization (WHO). On 9 September, however, a UN convoy supporting the vaccination campaign was stopped by the Israeli military at a checkpoint to northern Gaza for over seven hours. The UN said that Israeli forces wanted to detain two staff members. Soldiers pointed their weapons at UN staff, fired live shots, and tanks and bulldozers damaged UN vehicles with staff inside. On 11 September, an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-displacement shelter in Nuseirat refugee camp killed 18 people, including six staff from the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA. The strike drew international condemnation. Israel claimed the school was being used as a Hamas command centre, and that three of the UNRWA staffers were also Hamas militants. Another UNRWA staff member, a sanitation worker named Sufyan Jaber Abed Jawwad, was killed on 12 September by an Israeli sniper during an overnight raid on a refugee camp in the West Bank. Over 700 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military and settlers in the West Bank since last October. The recorded death toll in Gaza has reached more than 41,100, according to health authorities.

New atrocities strengthen calls for Sudan force

Last week, a UN fact-finding mission for Sudan called for an independent and impartial force to be deployed “without delay” to protect civilians. Its case would not have been harmed by reports this week of a new set of human rights violations in the country. In southeastern Sennar state, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were accused of killing 40 people in artillery strikes on local markets and residential areas, while in Darfur’s famine-stricken Zam Zam displacement site, the group reportedly tightened a siege and arrested traders trying to supply the camp. New reporting also emerged of earlier abuses, including the killing by the RSF and allied militias of over 70 civilians in the town of Kutum in June 2023, and there was renewed concern about damage to Sudan’s cultural identity amid the looting of tens of thousands of precious artefacts from museums. The war began in April 2023 and has produced the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises. Recent mediation efforts have failed, with the army refusing to turn up and the RSF using its attendance to try to launder its terrible image.

1 year after Derna

A year ago, on the night of 10-11 September, floods devastated the eastern Libyan city of Derna, as dams collapsed and entire neighbourhoods fell into the water. While the official death toll stands at around 5,900, some estimates are as high as 20,000 – and recovery for the 40,000 people displaced by the disaster has been painfully slow. A Human Rights Watch report says Libyan authorities “are failing to provide adequate compensation and reconstruction support”, and while some officials were tried and convicted for their roles in the dam collapses, there has been no accountability for those who ordered people to shelter in place as the storm hit. Aid groups say there’s still a lack of healthcare, psychosocial support, adequate shelter, and reliable clean water. Meanwhile, the country is still at war with itself. Rival powers have still not agreed on a plan to replace the exiled central bank governor, who has said that foreign banks aren’t working with the interim leadership. With oil exports down and shop owners struggling with basic transactions, there are fears of both a worsening economic crisis as well as all-out war. For a different view on Derna, check out this moving piece featuring artists across the country reacting to the disaster.

New database identifies potential US war crimes

It took the International Criminal Court (ICC) almost 20 years to indict, in 2019, an alleged war criminal who was not African. The court has since continued branching out, indicting Vladimir Putin in 2023 and issuing arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders this year. But an indictment for an American war criminal remains elusive. The court follows the principle of complementarity – it can only exercise jurisdiction when national legal systems fail to do so. But while the US has mechanisms to prosecute war crimes, this rarely happens, according to records recently published by The New Yorker. In the course of investigating the 2005 Haditha massacre, in which US Marines allegedly murdered 24 Iraqi civilians, reporters compiled a database of 781 incidents that the US military investigated as potential war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. Most of these cases, including killings of civilians and prisoners, were dismissed as either justified or lacking evidence. Out of 130 alleged perpetrators who were tried and convicted, fewer than a fifth received prison sentences.

Should destroying ecosystems contravene international law?

Three Pacific island nations have proposed that ecocide become a crime under international law, which would see the ICC prosecute cases of environmental destruction alongside war crimes and genocide. The move by Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa on 9 September is unlikely to see fast results but is expected to force ICC member states (notably those don’t include China, Russia, India, or the United States) to at least consider the problem, and it could one day lead to company leaders, or even nations, facing prosecution. Ecocide has had little focus from policymakers, despite the severe environmental emergency facing the planet. Defending the environment is a risky business in many places, as new research from the Global Witness campaign group shows: 2,000 environmental activists – often from Indigenous communities – have been killed since 2012, with 196 murders in 2023. There were 79 killings in Colombia, which is by far the deadliest country for green activists as environmentalism intersects with the country’s long-running conflict dynamics. Environmental activists are, however, making inroads in another conflict zone, with Greenpeace opening an office in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Watch the video below for more on that:

What’s in store at the Human Rights Council?

A new session of the Human Rights Council is underway (its 57th, for those keeping track). Rights and today’s pressing humanitarian crises converge through much of the agenda – but there’s also a growing emphasis on the problems of tomorrow. The council’s opening days already heard from investigative and fact-finding missions on Myanmar and Sudan. Venezuela and Syria are coming up. Among the many topics due before this session ends in October: the role of mercenaries in arms trafficking; the impact of “unilateral coercive measures” (aka sanctions); a widely cited report on the impact of loss and damage on rights; and the potential and risks of neurotechnology. A pair of reports tackle rights issues as experienced by people of African descent: use of force by law enforcement, and the consequences of digital technology including artificial intelligence.

AMAZON: Wildfires are devastating the Amazon region, both in Bolivia and Brazil, with smoke spreading across South America, forcing school closures, flight cancellations, and states of emergency to be declared. In Bolivia, the government ordered an “environmental pause”, suspending all controlled burns. Meanwhile in Brazil, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the Amazon and announced new measures to address drought and wildfires affecting more than 340,000 people.

CLUSTER MUNITIONS: Nearly two thirds of the world’s countries have signed on to the treaty banning cluster munitions. But a select few militaries continue to deploy the weapons, and non-signatories still produce and transfer them, as detailed in the annual Cluster Munition Monitor report. Cluster munitions were used in Ukraine, Myanmar, and Syria in 2023. Some 17 countries produced cluster munitions, and the US shipped the banned weapons to Ukraine.

ETHIOPIA/SOMALIA: Ethiopia has moved troops closer to the Somali border, amid reports its forces may also have seized airports in Somalia’s Gedo region. Tensions are running high over Ethiopia’s potential recognition of the breakaway region of Somaliland, but Mogadishu this week appeared to back away from an incendiary call for the deployment of 10,000 Egyptian troops.

GERMANY: Interior Minister Nancy Faeser announced on 9 September that Germany will temporarily reintroduce passport checks at all of its borders in a bid to crack down on irregular immigration. The move comes after the Alternative for Germany party won the first major election victory for a far-right party in the country since World War II. There are concerns that other EU countries could follow suit, undermining Europe’s supposedly borderless Schengen zone.

HAITI: As the UN resolution authorising the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to fight gangs is about to expire, and as criticism over its lack of funding and personnel rises, US President Joe Biden’s administration drafted a Security Council resolution requesting its transition into a UN peacekeeping mission. The move would secure funding, but whether Haitians will support it is another matter. The last UN intervention in Haiti introduced a cholera epidemic and left a legacy of sexual abuse claims.

KENYA: More fires have broken out in boarding schools across Kenya a week after the country declared three days of national mourning in memory of 21 boys who died in a school fire on 5 September. Though the cause of the fires is still unknown, arson attacks on boarding schools are frequent, with fire-related incidents claiming the lives of more than 100 children since 1998.

MPOX: Bavarian Nordic's mpox vaccine is the first to be approved by the WHO, which has called for an “urgent scale up” in procurement, donations, and rollout of shots to stop transmission of the virus. The decision will help national regulatory authorities fast-track approvals, increasing access to vaccine products, WHO said.

SYRIA: The UN Syria Commission of Inquiry has warned that fighting is intensifying on multiple fronts, amid increased tension related to the war in Gaza. The report, which looked at the 1 January-30 June period, said humanitarian needs are higher than at any point in Syria’s war, and noted multiple killings of civilians that may amount to war crimes.

UKRAINE: Three staff from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were killed on 12 September when shelling hit the site of a planned aid distribution near the front lines in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. Two other staff members were injured. The ICRC did not say who was responsible for the shelling.

VENEZUELA: A week after President Nicolás Maduro’s regime issued an arrest warrant against him, opposition leader Edmundo González – considered the real winner of the July presidential election – fled to Spain, where he was granted asylum. As repression continues in Venezuela, the United States placed sanctions on 16 officials close to the president for being “involved in Maduro’s fraudulent and illegitimate claims of victory and his brutal crackdown on free expression following the election”.

VIETNAM: At least 233 people have been killed by Typhoon Yagi, which led to flooding and landslides in and around the capital, Hanoi. Another 59 people remain missing as the Red River rises to its highest level in two decades. The storm, which also made its way through China, the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos, has already been declared the Asian continent’s most powerful storm of the year.

WEST AFRICA: Floods have surged across West Africa, affecting more than 1.5 million people. In northeastern Nigeria, over 400,000 have been left homeless following the collapse of the Alau Dam in Maiduguri. In Niger, more than 841,000 have also been impacted by flooding, and a further 343,900 people in Mali.

Weekend Read

As Mogadishu’s skyline transforms, the urban poor call for economic inclusion

‘In Mogadishu, new development is welcome – but all we ask is to be included.’

A construction boom in the Somali capital is threatening already vulnerable people with evictions.

And finally…

Climate plans absent from US presidential debate

Neither of the two front-runner candidates in the race to succeed unpopular, ageing US ruler, Joe Biden, who steps down next year after being forced out of the contest – has a plan to address climate change, a debate held on 10 September revealed. Opposition leader Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris clashed over a wide range of topics in the televised debate, including the Ukraine war and who loves Israel more. Under Biden, the oil-rich, banana-exporting republic has broken oil and gas production records. Despite noting the devastation that extreme weather events were wreaking on US communities and homeowners, Harris vowed to continue the controversial practice of fracking, which is now the most commonly used fossil fuel extraction method in the United States. Trump, on the other hand, simply ignored the climate issue, choosing instead to attack Harris’ commitment to fracking.

For more on how Patrick Gathara, our senior editor for inclusive storytelling, uses his writing (above) to encourage reflection on the – at times – offensive assumptions used by Western media to write about African and Asian countries, read this article.